flat beer

[Bigd2657]

I was just purusing the internet, earlier at work, and I saw a article on ale in the olden days which used to be served flat,

I had heard that before, but then in the comments section, there where homebrewers who said that tey had never carbonated there homebrew and always served there homebrew flat.

Has anybody else ever done this on here and does it work, or should we stick with trying to get a decent head on our beer.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I had never heard of flat beer so also did a little digging and found this -


Traditional ale styles of beer were only carbonated by using natural yeast and remaining sugars post fermentation. The ale house would "pull" pints from huge wood tanks, generally located below their taps by using traditional cask systems. CO2 was not available to breweries for most of the worlds brewing history. This led to a ale that was cellar temperature and with little to no carbonation.

Today breweries try to replicate this process by "cask conditioning" carbonating naturally their beers. So, there is no forced carbonation with CO2 and generally they do not refrigerate cask ales either.

https://alcohol.stackexchange.com/questions/907/are-some-beers-meant-to-be-served-flat

 

[Bigd2657]

Hi chippy,

So does this mean that flat ales are okay to serve or we need to still do the priming thing and leave for 2 weeks to carbonate .
this is what I got off the internet.

Historically beer was almost definitely still (flat) for thousands of years. Before the discovery/invention of force carbonation methods, all beer was carbonated naturally via bottle or cask conditioning. But people were brewing alcoholic beverages commonly referred to as beer in antiquity, and evidence from these cultures (ancient China, Neolithic culture, etc) suggests that they were doing this in big stone and earthenware pots and jugs, which may have had no lids or loose lids. Their vessels probably could not have withstood the pressure of carbonation even if they were using wax or cork to seal the vessels.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Hi chippy,
So does this mean that flat ales are okay to serve or we need to still do the priming thing and leave for 2 weeks to carbonate .

I haven't a clue as my knowledge of beer brewing could be written on the back of a postage stamp, i am sure plenty of members will have the answer.
.

 

[MyQul]

Ive bottled beer without adding any priming sugar before. What happens is the yeast restart a bit so you do get cabonated beer after about a month. The carbonation level is about 1.5 vols which is what I was aiming for as it was a porter and I wanted low English style carbonation levels

 

[Bigd2657]

Hi myqul,

Would that work for a normal bitter.

 

[MyQul]

Yes, I'm pretty sure it would. If your trying this (like I did) for no other reason than curiosity, I say go for it. But you can get exactly the same result (carbonation level), faster, by adding a small amount of priming sugar

 

[Bigd2657]

Okay thanks, that's good news.
So for a big head I just add more sugar.

 

[MyQul]

Not really, its the protiens (body) in the beer that gives a beer a big head. Adding more sugar will just make it fizzier -think something like bud lite which is quite fizzy but because of lack of body (protiens) doesnt have a big head